If you're reading thus far, welcome. So it's been 3 years since the "L O S T" finale and people are still scratching their heads and declaring "They were dead the whole time!".
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| No, that was us... |
Since it's premier in 2004, "L O S T" has been declared one of the most confusing shows ever...I however beg to differ. "L O S T" has NEVER been confusing at all, at it's core, "L O S T" is PAINFULLY simple. The REASON why people think "L O S T" is so confusing is because they want it to be confusing. I could sit here and speculate WHY they want "L O S T" to be confusing and not simple but that'd be a waste of time. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I'm smarter than the rest of you, I'm not. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I have some inside information that no one knows about. What I am going to do is explain why many people THINK "L O S T" is confusing and the answer is just as simple as the show.I'm going to use a visual aide.
Please tell me what's going on in this picture. Take your time. Now you're probably saying it's just a picture of a city and some buildings, nothing special about that, and from the little section of the picture you'd be 100% correct. Now take a look at the BIG PICTURE.
This, I think is the BEST example of why "L O S T" is so (apparently) confusing. "L O S T" applied a literary technique I call "Slow Reveal". The Slow Reveal Technique is mostly used in mysteries stories Where we as the audience solves the mystery along with the protagonist. When this technique is employed EVERYTHING must be taken at face value. The problem with "L O S T" is that the viewers had their own theory of where THEY THOUGHT the show was gonna go and unfortunately read their own theory into the show. The most common theory that EVERYONE still holds to (for some reason) is that the characters were in purgatory. The only why this theory would work is if so much other stuff wasn't introduced FROM THE PILOT EPISODE that would contradict the concept of them being in purgatory...
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| How many polar bears are in purgatory? |
For viewers to have to believe they were in purgatory for the entirety of the show would have to ignore, The Polar Bear, the use of firearms, the characters who died already (The pilot, the guy who drowned), the radio, Charlie's heroin ect. ect. You'd have to believe that the writers abandoned that idea from the pilot episode and changed it immediately before the episode even aired. Basically, the majority of people who watched "L O S T" began watching the show under the premise that these characters were dead the whole time, when evidence started to surface that these characters are in fact alive and well, the confusion began.
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| Radio reception sucks in purgatory... |
This is because 9 times outta 10 when people hear stories about a group of strangers in a mysterious place the twist usually is they're in some sort of after life.
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| Sure as Hell would have made this show much more interesting. |
Let's talk about answers. People often complain that "L O S T" didn't answer any questions, to that I say, "Were you paying attention?" Everything that needed to be answered was basically answered. There are some things that are indirectly answered, and other things that are answered by proxy. The problem here is that it's not that the questions WEREN'T answered it's just the answers given were answers people didn't like, probably because they expected something bigger. For example, when the Whispers were answered to be the ghosts of those who died on the island and couldn't move on, well of course, what else could it have been?
The reason why I'm not intimidated by "L O S T" is because I, unlike most people, took "L O S T" COMPLETELY at face value. I didn't question ANYTHING until I was given a reason to ask. Why is a Polar Bear there? Oh because of The DHARMA Initiative. However for the people asking how can a man turn into Black smoke and how does The Light work...well I ask how is Harry Potter able to fly on a broom? How is a simple Ring able to cause massive corruption? It's a little thing called magic and it can't exactly be explained in scientific X=Y terms.
In all seriousness I think people just suddenly become stupid whenever the topic of "L O S T" is brought up, and the sad thing is these are the same people who've watched and engaged in science fiction shows far more complex than "L O S T" in terms of the entire mythos regarding the show. "Doctor Who" comes to mind.
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| Wait...I'm the 10th Doctor...but I'm still the 1st Doctor? So we're the same person but different people? Wha?! |
"L O S T" is a show about a group of people on a mystical island who were brought there by the island's protector to replace him should anything happen to him. Simple as that.
The symbolism, the name of the characters ect. ect. NONE OF THAT MATTERS! The show explored the character's lives on and off the island to explain why they did certain actions, what they're leaving behind, what they wish to get back to and who they were before they arrived on The Island. Best example is John Locke, who is the only character to find a purpose in The Island because his life off the island had no purpose. We wouldn't know that if we hadn't seen Locke's flashback. In conclusion, "L O S T" is only AS confusing as you choose to make it. And because a LOT of people only had a small part of the puzzle and decided they knew what it was before finishing it, a lot of people got left scratching their heads and feeling frustrated. Why not just let the show speak for it's self? Why not withhold theorizing until you get enough of the puzzle? Anyway THAT'S why people are so confused with "L O S T" it's not because it's hard to understand, it's because they made it hard for themselves by walking in with a theory that got debunked at EVERY TURN.
All the questions that needed answering got answered. What the island is, why they're there, what they're supposed to do? Why it matters? ect. ect. Everything else doesn't matter...
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| Still can't explain this kid, though. |
And as for this notion that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse didn't know what they were doing with the ending...well...
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